twenty-six years six months, while their age when elected, was between thirty-nine and forty on an average. Not one of the old Academicians now survives; the two last were Pastoret, author of the inscription on the pediment of the Pantheon-" Aux Grands Hommes, la Patrie reconnaissante," and Jacques Dominique Cassini, who very lately died, and closed the list of the successive astronomers of that name from 1669, when his ancestor, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, removed from Bologna to Paris, up to the past year. The mean of military life in Great Britain, is found to be within a fraction of sixty years, not much under the Academic average, all circumstances considered. D'Alembert's death occurred on the 29th of October 1783, when he was buried in the cemetery of St. Germain L'Auxerrois, Extra Muros, the archbishop having interdicted the interment, as then usual in the church, in consequence of the publicité perseverante de ses opinions, another authoritative contradiction of Lord Brougham's asserted reserve in his avowal of these opinions. Nothing was more absurd, as was remarked by Grimm, than the anxiety expressed by these infidels for a christian sepulture in the church, which they gloried in desecrating during their lives. On the preceding month, the 18th, Euler's demise had deprived science of another of its highest proficients, but he was a declared believer in revelation. Various salaries and pensions had raised D'Alembert's final income from 8,200 francs, as previously stated, to about 14,000, but his beneficence was commensurate with this gradual advance; and he consequently had little to bequeath in his will, which it was found singular of observation, began with the customary, though by no means necessary, invocation of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Condorcet and De Watelet were named his executors and residuary legatees. Several epitaphs celebrated his praises, but the inscription destined for his portrait by Marmontel, his successor as secretary to the French Academy, was considered the most suitable. "Ce sage à l'amitié rend un culte assidu, Se dérobe à la gloire, et se cache à l'envie; Et simple comme la vertu." His personal appearance little corresponded with his high fame, nor was the "gratia oris," which instinctively won for Agricola the beholder's favour, as we learn from Tacitus, (cap. 44.) among nature's gifts to D'Alembert. His features and aspect, of homely form and expression, reflected not his innate powers, nor did his small stature and attenuated frame present any attraction to the vulgar gaze; but his conversation, sparkling with pointed and well told anecdotes, soon conciliated the disappointed eye, and rivetted all attention. And particularly when consociated with Mademoiselle L'Espinasse, practically guiltless as their intercourse was known to be, no society was more solicitously courted than theirs. We have already noticed his degrading condescension in administering to. her passions, which even sunk him in the estimation of those from whom his own direct participation in the immorality would not have elicited a word of reproof. These details, for D'Alembert's life was by no means confined to studious avocations, we feel confident demand no excuse, relating as they do to a person of preponderant European influence, scientific, literary, and social, far beyond the sphere of any other individual in his position, with the sole exception of Voltaire; for Rousseau, so posthumously ascendant, lived comparatively isolated and unsociable. He was the recognized chief of the philosophic faction in Paris, its central seat, whence radiated its spreading branches over the continent's expanse; and in truth, few writers could afford larger materials for a special biography, embracing the opinions, habits, manners, and views, of a period introductive of an era ever memorable in the annals of man, which rapidly succeeded it, and in the preparation of which none could be more efficiently active. We are, indeed, rather surprised that so pregnant a subject should not have produced some corresponding essay of execution. It can hardly fail, however, to do so; while we are bound to say, that Lord Brougham's sketch is a very imperfect attempt, both in the extent and accuracy of the information it assumes to convey, although the article is, next to that devoted to Voltaire, the amplest of the series, and not less one of predilection. The mathematical portion, sometimes rather of ostentatious display, is superior to the personal or historical narrative, which deficient, as is too usual with his lordship, in research, beyond the most obvious sources, offers little that may not be gathered from any biographical repository.* D'Alembert's miscellaneous works were collectively published in 1805, and again in 1821, while his mathematical treatises, though of far higher character, still remain unassembled, because science in general, has fewer readers, and being the aggregate of facts in most of its departments, is in daily advance, antiquating consequently, in a great degree, or disproving the preceding theories. Literature and Science in their respective influence on the human community, are thus distinguished by their special partisans. M. de Fontanes, Grand Master, as we have stated of the University, or as now understood, the Minister of Public Instruction, in his address on the 24th of April 1816, to the French Academy, fondly characterized the 66 * Mathematics, as already noted, formed Lord Brougham's earliest chosen study, but was soon and necessarily interrupted by his vocation to the bar and parliament, in which his eloquence at once assigned him a foremost rank. His sketches, again, of our statesmen and orators, the fruits of personal or closely traditional observation, imposing consequently no great labour, are creditable to his discrimination; but when incautiously betrayed into an ambitious display of omniscience, he aimed at the higher and graver departments of history, his impatience of research, haste of publication, and various prejudices, exposed him to constant inaccuracies of facts and views, which induced an old admirer of his talents thus withdrawn from their appropriate sphere, to address him the following advice, derived from a volume well known to his lordship, and of great literary merit in his estimation, however reprovable in other respects. Enrico, lascia l'istoria, e studia la matematica o la rettorica." The observance of this admonition would have precluded many a charge of singular aberrations in his lordship's more recently published works. In his political career he has been likened to the "bellua anceps," the elephant in battle, (Livy xxvii. 14.) often more formidable to his friends than to his adversaries. Nor as a writer, is he entitled to firmer confidence; for often as we have had, on this and other occasions, to indicate his misrepresentations, to rectify his errors, and from sources unknown to or unconsulted by him, to supply his omissions, we can assure our readers that these proofs of careless inquiry, precipitate judgments, and fallacious statements, might be considerably extended. For his perverted quotations, see an instance in the Gentleman's Magazine of this month, (March 1847,) in the Minor Correspondence, relative to Dryden's and Johnson's lines on death, at page 75 of his second volume. 66 distinctive sway of literature. Un peuple qui ne serait que savant, pourrait devenir barbare; un peuple de lettres est de sa nature, et nécessairement, poli et sociable." And Cardinal de Bonald consonantly observes, "La littérature est l'expression de la societé," while La Place, the modern Newton, whose successor in the Institute, Louis Puissant, afforded another instance of a mathematician's perverse temper, closes his great work with this impressive exhortation to the culture of science. Conservons, augmentons ces hautes connaissances, les délices des têtes pensantes. To these glorious_pursuits and aspirations, the animating words of Dante's Beatrice seem equally impellent. "L'alto disio, che mo t'infiamma ed urge, Tanto mi piace più quanto più turge."* 66 Paradiso-Canto xxx. 67, &c. It is singular that in the diversified course of Napoleon's conversations at St. Helena, embracing not only war, politics, legislation, morals, &c., but literature, in no instance did they turn on mathematics, although his earliest application of mind, and the only one for which at the College of Brienne he evinced any aptitude. The unmilitary associates of his expedition to Egypt in 1798, were chosen in the scientific class of the Institute; and he contributed two or three papers, of no particular merit however, to the mathematical section of the Grand Cairo Institute; but the portable library of four hundred small volumes provided for his recreation, consisted principally of works on light literature, including translations of our Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, and his favourite Ossian. The Bible is adjoined to the Koran, and the Vedah under the head of metaphysics, a subject so derided by him subsequently, as the visionary yet dangerous phantasies of those he called ideologues. The Ex-Emperor read admirably, by no means, however desirable, a common gift, and preferably chose the French tragic writers, of whom Voltaire appeared to him by far the lowest in the relative scale of genius, to a degree of inferiority, indeed, scarcely justified by considerate and impartial judgment. ART. X.-1. A Bill to render valid certain proceedings for the Relief of Distress in Ireland, by Employment of the Labouring Poor. Prepared and brought in by Lord John Russell, Mr. Labouchere, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1847. 2.-A Bill to make further provision for the relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland. Prepared and brought in by Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Labouchere. Ordered to be printed, 1847. 3.-A Bill for the Temporary Relief of Destitute Persons in Ireland. Prepared and brought in by Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Labouchere. Ordered to be printed, 1847. 4. A Bill to stimulate the prompt and profitable employment of the people, by the Encouragement of Railways in Ireland. Prepared and brought in by Lord George Bentinck, Mr. Hudson, Marquis of Granby, and Mr. Alderman Thompson. Ordered to be printed, 1847. 5.-A Bill for Better Securing the Payment of Poor Rates in Ireland. Prepared and brought in by Mr. Sharman Crawford, and Mr. William Williams. Ordered to be printed, 1847. 6.-A Bill to provide for the Execution of the Laws for Relief of the Poor in Ireland. Prepared and brought in by Lord John Russell, Sir George Grey, and Mr. Parker. Ordered to be printed, 1847. 7.-How to Reconstruct the Industrial Condition of Ireland. By JAMES WARD, ESQ. London: 1847. 8.-The State of Ireland and the Measures of Government for its Relief, considered with reference to the Interests of the Poor. London: 1847. a A FEW weeks in a single session have produced a multitude of measures, each intended by its author as a mitigation of the miseries of Ireland, a panacea for its evils, or a positive protection and certain security against future misfortunes. We profess our perfect willingness to believe in the good faith of the gentlemen who have propounded these multifarious plans. Each projector, we are sure, conceives himself alone to be in the right, and is actuated by a pure philanthropy, although it may be a shallow and mistaken philosophy. In venturing to give our own opinion, we desire to be understood as tendering it, not only with diffidence as |